The Times's Jenni Russell breaks her new year's resolution

“My new year’s resolution? Be more thankful,” ran the headline over a column by the Times’s Jenni Russell on December 29, as she mused that “grievance is becoming dangerously pervasive, even though we’ve never had it so good”.

Imploring her readers not to be overwhelmed by the constant sense the world is going to hell in a handcart – an idea fed to them daily by, er, the Times – Russell wrote: “Our distress is unsurprising. We grew up expecting more, we witness the deterioration, we mourn the loss of what we had and the future we anticipated. It’s important we lobby, vote and work for change. But while we’re waiting, or acting, the imperative is to avoid living under a cloud of personal gloom. What we’re missing is a sense of gratitude.

“Everyone I know who quietly practices regular gratitude is evangelical about the difference it has made. There aren’t many resolutions one could make that cost so little effort for so much benefit. Good lives can’t wait for good times. This is one I’ll be adopting in 2026.”

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How well did that resolution last? About as well as most people’s resolutions at this time of year – by January 12, Russell had reverted to the mean.

Calling for Keir Starmer to crack down on crime, Russell painted a picture of Britain that would put anyone under a cloud of personal gloom. “The country is less peaceful and predictable than 20 years ago,” she wrote. “Crime clear-up rates have collapsed by almost half in a decade, to only one in 14 crimes, while recorded crime has risen by more than half. Courts are chaotic and overloaded, cases delayed for years, prisons don’t have enough space to keep the convicted behind bars. The age of criminal impunity is dawning – and, fatally, criminals know it.

“We are in a state of emergency,” she added. “I profoundly wish this wavering government would recognise that.”

Where’s that sense of gratitude gone?